The Fate of The Artist
by alwaysflying
Summary: At the end of Mark's final 525,600, he muses over paper bags, endings, and love.


The Fate of The Artist

December 24th, 1991

11:42 P.M. Eastern Standard Time

_The only freedom money gives you is not worrying about money._

-Johnny Carson

"Christmas Eve again," whispers Mark, pulling the blanket he uses as a shawl closer to him. He wishes anything, any other constant in his life was as shabbily warm and comforting as the blanket is, but no. It's a moment's comfort, an hour's comfort, something that once to him was the accompanyment of board games with Cindy, pink-tinged cheeks, hot chocolate and rented skis.

Time flies, time dies. The only problem is that the moments that fly the fastest are the moments that one most wants to last. The moments that crawl by, still trying to test out their wings – those are the moments of sharing a bed with Roger, desperate for the warmth of his roommate's body just as Roger is desperate for Mark's own warmth; the moments of missing Mimi and Collins and Angel and wondering how long their memories will last. How long will it be until Mark no longer looks up at fleeting snatches of words on the street: _Cat Scratch_, _ATM_, _drag queen_.

He knows he shouldn't complain. He knows he has it better than Roger – even without Buzzline, at least Mark has the security of knowing that apart from the rent that even Benny can't be so cold as to demand now, he, Mark Cohen, can survive without money. Roger isn't so lucky. Lucky. Roger relies on Mark's pocket change to get through another week, another day, another hour… and worst of all are the moments when Roger doesn't know if it's worth it anymore. Only in the deepest pit of his heart does Mark admit that he's been wondering the same thing, and he'll curse himself for thinking it.

It should've been me, he thinks sometimes. Roger could've made it, Roger could've gotten past it all, gotten famous, gotten money. But it had to be him. I could've – if I'd slept with April… no. No. Because of course it doesn't bear thinking about, does it, not when Mark can't change anything. But maybe thinking helps, takes him away from reality for just a moment the way that sex with Maureen used to do for him, the way that filming helped before he had to sell the camera – and for what? For another paper bag that Mark only knows will prolong Roger's suffering.

Roger always had a distraction, Mark thinks bitterly. It helps to be bitter sometimes. Roger had Mimi, and before that, had April. Always had music – until now, anyways. What do you need, to have music, anyways? If he wanted to he could sing. But Roger doesn't sing anymore. He can't, even. His voice is raspy and when he speaks, he coughs violently and can't get more than three syllables out before having to tug the blanket closer around his shoulders and cough up more blood. Is that natural for AIDS? Mark wonders. Or is it just starving, freezing, and dying all at the same time that does it to him?

Mark wonders sometimes if Mimi and Angel and Collins have their own loft now, wherever they are. Do they have a fireplace, a central heating system, and cable like Collins used to talk about from his childhood? What would they want in their fantasy home… Mimi would want a walk-in closet and a huge bed, perfect for whoever she brought home, and a bar. She would want banisters to slide down when going downstairs. Angel would want it to be cozy and warm and comfortable so that she could snuggle against her lover and remember good times in a moment of silence. She would insist on a fireplace, and a heating system, and probably a garden outside too. Collins couldn't deny her that, not when he would have so little requests of his own. That was Mark's job once, to make everyone happy, but he failed.

A sudden burst of anger flares through Mark, and he's relieved – it's just a split second of warmth. But then he focuses, remembers why he's so angry… does Roger look happy? Does he himself, does Mark look happy? Nobody Mark ever knew is happy. His friends are dying, dead, or gone… oh, god. Maureen and Joanne.

A comfortably warm July morning, just about the moment when Mark thought that if he could scrounge up enough money for Roger's AZT, they'd be fine. That was back when he had his camera and Roger his guitar. Maureen and Joanne, scheduled to come by in an hour, Mark's insistence that Roger shower, for once, and Roger's refusal. The doorbell… a choked sob… tears that only dried hours later.

It was the day that Maureen disappeared. It was, as anyone who'd known the diva might have expected, a dramatic departure. It matched the drama queen's loud personality, just as it matched her ability to be silent when the situation called for it. Like at Collins's funeral, Mark recalls. Silent tears had streamed down her face back then, and Mark could see at once that her expression matched his perfectly: "Is anyone left?"

And so on the day of her disappearance, just as she had been silent and still expressive back then, there was but one piece of evidence marking that Maureen Johnson had left, with no intention of coming back. The corner of a newspaper page, on which there were the words – written perfectly neatly in a lawyer's handwriting rather than Maureen's usual flamboyant, loud scrawl – "Pookie, Mark, and Roger. I love you. I'm sorry. Please don't think any less of me for leaving. I just need to go, at least for now."

And that Roger had understood, had been the only one who'd read Maureen's note without an expression of pure shock. Curled up on the couch under mountains of blankets, Roger had nodded silently, letting tears pool in his lap before handing the note back to Joanne. He had whispered, half to himself and half to Maureen, "I know." And hours later, when Mark had the fleeting thought that Mark might know where Maureen had gone, he didn't ask.

And then September rolled around, the month in which Joanne faced the most trouble in the office, and she had been forced to take her place once more amongst co-workers, all of whom knew that "Miss Jefferson's lesbian lover walked out on her back in July to be with a _man_…" It didn't break Joanne's heart to hear the rumors. She had heard similar ones before. What doesn't kill me makes me stronger, she'd decided, and entered her office. Only after the door had swung shut did she allow herself to cry, and just as her watch beeped, signifying the start of her lunch hour, her office door opened and in walked the last person she'd expected to see – Benny, who had hated Maureen more than she had ever been hated by any one person before. In his hands was a box of tissues – Puffs, Maureen's favorite.

Together, she and Benny had sat in silence for what must have been hours. They didn't exchange words, only glances and expressions and tears, but Joanne somehow learned that Benny hadn't hated Maureen at all, hadn't even disliked her – his passionate attitude towards her, Joanne realized, was a way of Benny's expression of his admiration for the outspoken, courageous drama queen who had questioned his every decision. And Benny, through those hours of silence, had begun to understand that Joanne, while possibly the world's most incompatible partner for Maureen Lily Johnson, had loved Maureen more than absolutely anything else in the world. So they sat together in silence.

That evening, Mark, staring out the window, had watched a forest green Range Rover driving away, away from Avenue B, away from _reality_. In the morning, he hadn't called Joanne, knowing that he wouldn't find her. And then, three days later, the Range Rover car door had slammed and only one person left the vehicle before marching up the stairs to the floor just below Mark's and Roger's.

And now, in the present – the third Christmas Eve Mark had celebrated since meeting Angel, and Mimi, and becoming an _us_ – an us that slowly lost its meaning after more and more of Mark's _us _faded into blackness, leaving only Mark and Roger standing under the spotlight. And, of course, spotlight remains on the paper bag on the kitchen table with Roger's name etched on it in black Sharpie marker – not Mark's. Borrowing the marker to write a name on the bag, Mark's only way to avoid policemen's attention while carrying a light, brown paper bag across the East Village. "My son's lunch," he mutters when receiving odd looks, carrying the drug from nameless pharmacy into the loft. Inside, there are now twenty-four blue-and-white pills that Mark can never look at without flinching and turning away. They keep Roger alive, he'll agree, but they're all too similar to that which once "kept Roger alive" – the casual early-morning and late-night injections of heroin into the young man's arms.

Did Joanne ever find Maureen? Mark wonders. How far did she get before Benny decided he wanted to go home in his comfortable car, leaving Joanne stranded in the middle of nowhere. Did she get to Santa Fe? Is she perhaps back in the city right now? Will she ever come back? Will _Maureen _ever come back?

Mimi, Collins, Angel. Will Mark ever see them again? After death, long after his body can take no longer the freezing-cold nights and starvation and thirst and long walks of his fragile body up the six flights of stairs with two bags in his hands: one carrying Roger's life, the other carrying a bagel that Mark and Roger share. Will Mark ever know days of inspiration, quality filmmaking, and cross-country trips to mountains and sand and tan welcomes? No, no, he'll never know such things, he knows immediately.

Benny, he wonders. It's not a question, really, but to Mark it is. Mark knows not what to think or even ask about his once-roommate: the man was first the angel – _no_, not angel, the savior – who helped Mark ease Roger into a drug-free life carrying promises of free residence. Later Benny became the plague – a liar, a scammer, and a man who gave Roger sleepless nights and afternoons of throwing objects against the walls. The boy who sat with Roger for hours in high school, smoking on the stoop and comparing girls' bodies – the man who helped, even if only for a little while, Joanne search for her lost love. To Mark, Benny had been a helper, the one who was a constant, even if his alliegence was always changing and he had more money than the rest of his friends put together.

Benny could help me, Mark knows, but such a situation would never occur. Mark wouldn't approach the man, and if he did, Roger would waste breath and blood coughing up a lung, telling Mark not to be so stupid, that they could survive on their own.

Mark wonders sometimes if Roger is even alive. Does the once-aware, observant young man know that he's dying, that Mark is dying too? Does Roger know that if Mark dies, Roger will be unable to live another moment? Oh, god. If Mark dies… that scares Mark more than anything. Not that he is so averse to dying. He's not averse at all, in fact. He views it as the long, warm sleep he will get one day after exhausting himself beyond repair. He isn't afraid of sleep. Were Roger not incapable of surviving on his own, Mark might be so inclined to pursue death before it pursues him; a coward's way out, _April_'s way out, but worth it.

Never again, Mark realizes sometimes, will Roger or Angel or Mimi or Mark create art that they were once so proud of. Never again will Maureen drape her arm around his shoulder and call him "Pookie" – but it's been more than two years since that last happened anyway. It's the end of cracks about Angel's santa dresses and Roger's endless sarcasm and pessimism, and of Collins's bittersweet lovesick moments of pondering the great beauty that was, that is his lover.

Mark has always been an observer, but he realizes now that there is nothing left for him to observe anymore. And what is observation without it being recorded? Mark wonders if maybe Collins is waiting for him somewhere, holding out a video camera that Mark can keep and use and store all his observations on – but Mark can't accept the camera yet, not until Roger's gone. If Roger dies, Mark knows, he'll be cut free of obligations. Then he'll be able to sleep.

Pillows, he thinks absently as he slides in next to Roger in the bed they started sharing six months ago. Pillows and blankets and just perfect, perfect silence and sleep.

Mark's eyes flicker shut, and they do not open.


End file.
